MALLINation

CGI vs. CGI in The Incredible Hulk

Marvel Comics has a habit of adding nifty adjectives to it’s characters names – The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, the…uh, Fantastic Four. So it should be noted that the movie The Incredible Hulk isn’t necessarily bragging about it’s own quality relative to Ang Lee’s still warm Hulk. It is the better film though, despite running out of steam and morphing like it’s titular character back into mere mortal form.

Director Louis LeTerrier, a Luc Besson protege best known for The Transporter, is certainly less the auteur than Lee but he does seem to have a firmer handle on the material. There are plenty of references to the late 70s TV show including cameos by stars Bill Bixby (on a TV set from beyond the grave) and Lou Ferrigno and a very clever reworking of the infamous “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry line.” The music even echoes the plaintive piano plinking that used to sound as Banner would hitchhike from town to town alone and destitute.

It helps that mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner is portrayed here by Edward Norton who has a deeper well of acting tricks and just plain charisma than the previous film’s Eric Bana. Thrown into the mix is William Hurt and his brush mustache which gives him the right look to play General Ross, the Hulk’s main adversary for much of the movie. Hurt dials down his recent  scenery chewing a tad which is actually a little disappointing – he’s an expert masticator in films as diverse as Mr. Brooks and A History of Violence.

Liv Tyler improbably plays Hurt’s daughter and though she ranks about a 5 on the hot scientist scale (with Elisabeth Shue in The Saint at 1 = Not at all believable and Michelle Meyrink in Real Genius at 10 = fully believable) she does bring a solid emotional intelligence to the role.

Finally, Tim Roth plays a military man who becomes fixated on beating the Hulk, partly out of pride and partly out of envy. Roth’s ferrety charms get spent fairly early in the plot and his arc is the least satisfying of the film.

Still there is a lot of welcome humor on display as well as some fine filmmaking including a comic book paced prologue and a lengthy opening sequence set in Brazil. The foreign backdrop is bracing in the same way that that the first section of Batman Begins (set in an Asian mountain range) was, announcing a corrective to audience expectations.

Indeed Peter Menzies Jr.’s cinematography is at it’s best here, lulling the viewer into a character driven film about a mysterious American on the run in the tropics. Alas, he does return and though the movie tries, it never quite recovers from the fabulous opening.

There are some well-staged action sequences, particularly a siege on a  college campus, but like Lee’s film the big green guy never seems anything less than an animated character onscreen. The CGI is about as good as it can be but the character design just can’t escape seeming like an angry Shrek.

At best they seem rubbery, and I say they because an even bigger, badder hulk shows up to tangle in New York by film’s end. At this point the film gets bogged down in the mechanics of fully-animated battle and like Spiderman 3, it suffers for it.

It was the Incredible Hulk’s curse that it is in fact quite enjoyable for most of it’s screen time but happened to be released in a summer that includes two of the best ever superhero flicks, The Dark Knight which brings delicious ambiguity to the anti-militarist themes that infuse this version of Hulk and Iron Man which takes raffish charm and humor beyond what Norton has time or inclination to do.